Stylish Black and White Wedding in Calgary

From the Bride:

Marco and I met in high school in our senior year. We became fast friends after working on a math project and had decided to go to graduation together, still just as friends. Somewhere along the way to grad, we realized we were much more than friends after Marco kissed me for the first time at our friend’s house party. I guess the kiss was good because we’ve been together ever since!

In 2015, Marco and I both turned 25, Marco in April, and myself in July. For Marco’s birthday, his parents surprised us with tickets to Vancouver for the weekend of my birthday! When my birthday came, Marco picked me up from work and surprised me with a walk-through of our condo unit that was still under construction at the time. Our condo is a special place for us, as it is the first home either of us had bought, and we had purchased it together. When we got to the site, we met with Marco’s coworker who, I was told, would be with us to take photos of the construction process (Marco works for the developer of our condo). Unfortunately for us, the hoist was not working that day, so the only option was to walk up thirty flights of stairs in our steel-toed boots to reach our condo. Luckily, Marco’s coworker decided to stop off on the 16^th floor to look at a condo that had beautiful views of downtown Calgary. When we got in the unit, I walked to the windows taking in the view and building up excitement for us to finally live here. When I turned around, and Marco was there on his one knee asking me to be his everything.
Overjoyed and finally engaged, Marco and I went home to a small surprise party for my birthday with our immediate families, when it was us who surprised them all with our engagement! We had an idyllic weekend getaway in Vancouver, where we got to celebrate and bask in our engagement bliss.

For our wedding, we wanted a classic black & white theme with a hint of soft gold to play against the gorgeous outdoor fall colors. Originally, we were going to ask all guests to wear soft, neutral colors to accent our stark black and white colors, but when the guest list grew too large, we knew that the color scheme would have gotten lost-in-translation with our cousin’s – brother’s – sister’s friend. So, we went for a color palette that we felt would showcase our style and that was timeless!

Your top 3 best moments and why:

Well, that’s tough, as the entire day played together so beautifully and, really, every aspect was what made the day perfectly ours. But if we had to choose, we would have to say that our first favorite moment of the day was when we got to say our own vows. Marco and I decided early on that we wanted to write our own vows to one another because we always leave each other love notes. So this was our moment to share our sentiments not only with each other on our special day, but also have our loved ones hear, feel, and share in our love.

Another special moment, just after finishing our first dance, was sitting down at our sweetheart table and being able to see everyone that had come out to celebrate with us. Our table was positioned on a stage and was so beautifully decorated, equipped with a champagne sequin table cloth and softly-lit chandelier; it gave off a wonderfully romantic feeling for the two of us. Being able to sit together so intimately with my now-husband, listening to speeches from our immediate family and close friends, and all the while seeing our guests’ reactions to both the speeches and the food was such a warming feeling for the both of us.

Our last favorite part of the day had to have been getting in the limo finally and letting it all soak in. We had scheduled our limo originally for 10:30 p.m., thinking that we would be quite tired after such a long day; however, our family and friends were so roaring and ready to dance the night away that we delayed our limo pick-up twice that evening. Finally, when we pulled away from it all, we got to sit back, take in a full, deep breath and just smile at each other. That private moment between us was so peaceful and confirmed that all of the planning was really, truly worth it.

One of our favorite details of the wedding was our wedding favors. It is an Italian custom to hand out bonbonnieres for any special event, which included a gift and a small bag filled with 5 candy-covered almonds (confetti) that signify well-wishes for the bride and groom.

We both share a love for wine, so we decided to have home-made wine in our favor. The process of putting the entire favor together was a family affair, as, first, had to have enough empty bottles to start with. A lot of loud family dinners and wine tasting went into the search for the empty bottles, which proved rather an easy task for our combined families.

My father then brewed the wine for months prior to the wedding, and we had our confetti flown in from Marco’s father’s hometown in Italy. We also had our labels custom made, which read ‘cheers’ in either Italian and Polish to reflect both of our heritages.

Another favorite detail, if you ask my husband, was our extensive candy bar and never-ending food options. Marco’s main goal was for our guests to not go hungry, and we more than surpassed our goal. Our antipasto bar was full of different finger foods for everyone to snack on prior to our arrival at the ceremony spot. Then, for dinner, our guests were treated to a pasta course, main course, and dessert course. Finally, when it was time to dance off those food bellies, most people were too distracted by the large candy bar. But, low and behold we could not stop there, so we had to have a midnight buffet to keep our guests going, which was equipped with pizza and other good late-night snacks. Our mothers, grandmothers, and aunts all helped to make some truffles and home-made cookies that sweetened the midnight buffet as well.

One more much-loved detail that Marco and I really enjoyed was our first dance. We enlisted the help of a talented Canadian ballroom dancer who helped us put the dance together from start to finish. At first, I thought Marco would have been reluctant to take dance lessons with me, but it turns out that he really loved it! We only had a few short openings where we could practice our dance with our lovely instructor, as he is based out of Toronto, but both times we did, we had such a blast! We would work for hours, but it always felt like minutes. When we finished our lessons, we always wanted to keep dancing, so we would push back our furniture in the living room and practiced and practiced and practiced!

Being able to spend that time together brought us closer, and we enjoyed surprising everyone with a dance that reflected a story about us and our relationship.

Need more inspiration? Check out this beautiful forest engagement session in Calgary!